Einaudi is the estate of a famous Italian politician - the label says the first president of Italy and Wikipedia says that he is the second. The family still owns it and recently bought the important Dardi vineyard in the Monforte district.

In the early 90's, they bought a slice of the famous Cannubi vineyard in the Barolo district from Gancia (?), the large industrial producer. This has to be one of their first vintages from that vineyard.

What a hoot though. I thought I had grabbed their normale/classico bottling and it wasn't until I sat down just now to write this that I realized it was the Cannubi bottling! It was supposed to have been saved for our anniversary celebrations. Ooops.

That makes some sense as the Cannubi bottling of theirs had the reputation for being modern. At the time, some people here on the forum bemoaned the loss of the vineyard to modernists. Well, I just had a chance to drink it and maybe they were right! Anyways, I have no idea what the "Nei" means, relative to Cannubi. Some of my comments below were colored by the fact I thought I was drinking a "lesser" wine.

"Modern, chalky, cool and dry on the finish. Spicy, delicious, sort of, fun to drink, very spicy. The nose had lavender, soy, rose flowers, was spicy with cinnamon scents. Great wine, balanced and harmonious, strong. Quinine, not getting better. Smooth and satisfying but not complete. The dregs were bitter, with coffee and structure"

I found this wine to be not very Barolo-like. I don't think I would have recognized it as a barolo blind. It's a very nice wine but suffers from a lack of distinctiveness. It wasn't very memorable and I don't think it went with my food quite the way I would have expected. That said, it was a pleasure to drink but I would have expected more from Cannubi. It seems like it will last for awhile but doubt it will get better. Bought on release and open for 1 hour and decanted for 2 hours beforehand.

Went to get some venison rack for dinner and the guy pointed out fresh boned quail, two for $10. They were quite large as I've never seen so much meat on a quail before. I stuffed them with walnuts, lots of sage, parsley from the garden, prosciutto and some basics. I finally got with the program of drying them off before searing and the results were great. Our oven won't go over 350 degrees so I ran the broil until it shut off. Then I stuck the quail in there and turned it to bake at 350, the max. So the quail started out at a high temperature and gradually decreased on its own to 350 where I baked it for a while longer. It came out perfectly done and the filling was quite moist and distinctive. Great meal!